Overture Adds Excite.com
Through a renewed agreement with InfoSpace, the former Excite@Home portal will join Overture's list of big-name affiliates.
Overture will provide its paid search engine listings to InfoSpace’s
Web properties — including Excite.com — through an expansion of an earlier deal.
The agreement extends for another three years the agreement that has existed between InfoSpace and Overture — formerly known as GoTo.com. Through the deal, Overture’s pay-for-placement listings will continue to appear on Bellevue, Wash.-based InfoSpace.com and its affiliates, such as metasearch engines Dogpile and MetaCrawler.
InfoSpace is also powering the search and directory components of the Excite Web site, which will begin hosting Pasadena, Calif.-based Overture’s search listings as well. (InfoSpace purchased Excite.com through Excite@Home’s bankruptcy sale last month, for about $10 million, with iWon.com expected to purchase or license the portal’s non-search or directory component from InfoSpace.)
“We are pleased that we were able to expand our agreement with InfoSpace, as they are an important strategic partner,” said John Gentry, senior vice president and general manager for Overture’s affiliate business group. “InfoSpace’s extensive affiliate network gives Overture the benefit of increased distribution and helps us further demonstrate our ability to provide a quality search offering to our partners.”
With the InfoSpace and Excite.com deal, Overture extends its reach even further among the top portals. The news comes just weeks after Overture reported its first profit, due largely to its success in syndicating its paid listings to major site operators like AOL Time Warner, Terra Lycos
and AltaVista. Overture last month also announced a pilot program with Yahoo
to put listings on its search engine results.
Meanwhile, InfoSpace described the renewed partnership as a win for its Web affiliates.
“Search is a primary focus of our efforts in the wireline space and this relationship highlights a key goal of providing a comprehensive search experience to the affiliates who license our services,” said York Baur, InfoSpace’s executive vice president for wireline and broadband.
